Isn't it funny how you can go through life without really seeing things as they really are?  How one day you wake up and feel like you've had the veil lifted from in front of your eyes because you see things differently?

The things I see differently today are things that have been there all along...I just never really saw them for what they truly are before.  I saw parts of them, yes, but.....I never saw the whole thing. 

I cannot place the single event that made me see things in their true light. Thinking back on it, I can identify things that should have alerted me, but I failed to pay proper attention to them.

However, that's all retrospection and is really invalid.  What matters is that I can see now, and can take appropriate action...or non-action, as the case may be.  I'm big on less aggression, more passive resistance and neutraility these days;which I like to think is a direct result of more meditation and spiritual practice on my part.

There a Buddhist parable about 4 blind men and a elephant that accurately describes my situation.  These four were walking along a path in the Indian countryside when they came across an elephant blocking their way.  The first man reached out and felt the elephant's leg and declared the object in their way to be a tree.  The second felt the animal's flank and said that it was an impenetrable wall.  The third  grasped the elephant's trunk and cried out in fear that it was a snake, a huge snake that would surely kill them all.  The last caught hold of the tail, and wondered what the other three were wailing about, because all he felt was a piece of rope.  They sat on the path, not knowing what they should do, and after a while a stranger came along and asked why they were sitting there.  The four blind men explained their plight to him, each describing to him what they had experienced....and the stranger laughed and said:

"You fools!  There is no tree or wall or rope, and there certainly isn't a snake.  It's an elephant, that's all!"

And he poked the elephant with his staff, made it move off the path and carried on his way.

I saw the whole elephant today.